YORKTON - An annual highlight at the Grain Millers Harvest Showdown in Yorkton is the presentation of the Farmer Recognition Award.
The award sponsored by Yorkton Concrete 2012 Ltd, was presented last Thursday to Blaine and Glenda Buckle and their sons Steven & Justin at the commercial grain, forage and pedigreed seed awards evening. The presentation was made by Nicole and Darrin Campbell of Yorkton Concrete.
“It’s a great honour,” Blaine Buckle told Yorkton This Week following the presentation.
“Our family was one of the first (in the area).”
So to still be farming the homestead quarter taken in 1888, and now to be recognized in such a way is quite gratifying, he added.
Blaine said he has been on the farm basically since childhood.
“I was the only child who farmed,” he said, adding he came back to the farm after graduating from agriculture at the U of S in 1983.
Today the farm encompasses 50 quarters of land, half owned and half rented.
“Half of it’s grain land and the rest is for cattle,” said Blaine.
The cattle size of things encompasses 300-400 cows, a number that Blaine said fluctuates somewhat with process. The calves are backgrounded then shipped to a feedlot in Nebraska for finishing, while the Buckles maintain ownership.
Sending cattle south has been something Blaine said they have done for years now, noting the feedlot there has 50,000 head and is well located to finished cattle markets.
The cattle side is where Blaine admits he is happiest.
“I lean to cattle probably because my dad did,” he said. As for his sons, Blaine said one focuses on the grain side of the farm, the other the cattle, a split in work created by design.
“It’s something I’m glad I did,” said Blaine, adding it allows each son to focus on an area of their interest, and avoids any friction a difference of opinion on what should be done might create.
So how was 2024?
“It was an average crop,” said Blaine, adding the silage, hay and pasture all dedicated to the cattle side, “was good.”
